Ball for shrapnel.



No. 631,702. Patented Aug. 22, I899.

B. W. DUNN.

BALL FOR SHRAPHEL.

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NITED STATES BEVERLY \V. DUNN, OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY, ASSIGNOR TO THE SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY, OF IVATERBURY, CONNECTICUT.

BALL FOR SHRAPN EL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N0. 631,702, dated August 22, 1899.

Application filed December 16,1898. Serial No. 699,447. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Beit known that I, BEVERLY IV. DUNN, a captain in the United States Army, stationed at Frankford Arsenal, Philadelphia, in the county of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Balls for Shrapnel, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates especially to balls for use in shrapnel.

By shrapnel I mean a projectile for use in cannon containing a number of relatively small projectiles, a bursting charge of powder, and a fuse which causes the projectile to burst in flight. The eflieiency of a shrapnel of a given weight depends upon the number and effectiveness of the small projectiles thus liberated at the desired point in the flight of the shrapnel. To be effective, these small projectiles should be as dense and as nearly spherical in shape as possible when thus liberated. If ordinary lead balls were piled into a shrapnel and fired, the maximum pressure applied to them while in the gun would be sufficient to cause a large percentage of them to be mashed into more or less fiat disks which would not have a regular flight after the bursting of the shrapnel. To prevent this deformation of the lead balls, which is objectionable for many other reasons not necessary to mention here, various devices are used in shrapnel as now constructed. It is necessary in using any of these devices to sacrifice to them a part of the given weight of the shrapnel, which reduces the total number of balls contained in the shrapnel and therefore the efficiency of the shrapnel.

In order to retain the benefit of the weight of a lead ball and at the same time to reinforce it against deformation, I use a lead ball, core, orbody and incase it in a jacket of strong and stiff material, preferably steel, which may be applied in a variety of ways.

I esteem it desirable in assembling jacketed spherical balls in shrapnel. that the balls should be more or less flat at the poles, as thereby the balls are capable of being piled with accuracy in the shell and are capable of beingheld therein against displacement while the shell is in flight. The jacketed balls may be left perfect spheres, however, without changing the principle of my invention.

In the accompanying drawings, illustrating my invention, in the several figures of which like parts are similarly designated, Figure 1 shows a ball in elevation with a jacket-blank in vertical section. Fig. 2 shows in vertical section aball like that of Fig. 1 with the jacket applied. Fig. 3 is a plan view of a jacketed ball. Fig. 4 is a vertical section of another form of jacket, hereinafter referred to as the cupped jacket. Fig. 5 is a mutilated elevation showing a ball in place in a cupped jacket, and Fig. 6 is a vertical section of a ball jacketed with the cupped jacket.

The ball a preferably is made of lead or an alloy of lead and substantially spherical in shape, but having diametrically opposite portions provided with cylindrical projections 11, the parallel faces of which are flat.

0 is a metal (preferably steel) jacket, which is applied to the ball by first producing it in the form of a cylindrical tube, substantially as in Fig. 1, and then bending said tube about the ball and closing its ends around the cylindrical projections b, substantially as shown in Fig. 2.

Instead of using a cylindrical tube open at both ends from which to form the jacket I may use the cupped jacket, as shown inFigs. 4, 5, and 6, and in such case one of the cylindrical projectionsb may be omitted; but preferably that end of the ball from which the projection is omitted is made flat.

By the constructions described and which may be variously modified without departing from the principle of my invention I obtain a missile of lead and having the advantagesof the weight of lead and a jacket of steel of sufficient strength and stiffness to resist the ordinary strains of deformation to which the missile is exposed, and, as shown in my application for patent of even date herewith and entitled Improvement in shrapnel, balls made with the flattened ends and steel jackets may be very compactly piled in the shell and in the best possible position and condition to resist the strains to which they are subjected in such use.

I am aware that it is a common practice to jacket the oblong projectiles which are fired secure increased penetration.

advantages incident to my construction is that I obtain for the balls a greater penetration after the bursting of the shrapnel than can be obtained from the unjacketed balls.

What I claim is- 1. A spherical or approximately spherical missile, for use in shrapnel, comprising a ball, core or body of relatively heavy material, such as lead, and a jacket of relatively strong and stiff material, such as steel, bent about the same, substantially as described.

2. Amissile,forshrapnehcomprisingaball, core or body, and a cupped jacket of strong and stiff material, having its closed end fiattened and its other end bent about the opposite flattened end of the ball, core or body, substantially as described In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 12th day of December, A. D. 1898.

BEVERLY W. DUNN.

WVitnesses:

WALTER R. BRoNsoN, HENRY WV. MINOR. 

